Stanley Johnson - Kompromat

Jack Varese, toting his flight bag over his shoulder, climbed out of the cockpit via the pilot’s door, then walked round to open the side door for the others.

‘Glad to see you found some transport at Kununurra, Jack. Welcome to Lazy-T station.’ Selkirk gave the Hollywood movie-star an all-embracing hug. That’s what they all did nowadays, he thought. Hug each other. In the old days, you just shook hands. Most often not even that. Just tipped your hat, if you were wearing one, and said ‘Gday’mate.’ Never mind. Go with the flow. No harm in that.

Mickey Selkirk turned to greet Rosie Craig. Christ, he had known her since she was a baby. And look at her now! What a gorgeous creature.

‘Rosie, you look wonderful. Melanie, doesn’t Rosie look wonderful? Come on in, everyone. Let’s have a drink.’

Mickey Selkirk gave them all a great beaming smile. This was the moment he had been waiting for. How did that rhyme go? Will you come into my parlour said the spider to the fly?

They had drinks before dinner on the homestead’s terrace, with its splendid view of the Pentecost River, as it ran through the Lazy-T cattle station on its way to the Indian Ocean.

Mickey Selkirk introduced them to the staff, a middle-aged Chinese couple.

‘Meet Ching and Fung,’ he said. ‘They look after the place. They do the cooking too, I’m glad to say. They’ve been in this country for years. Go over to Broome and you’ll find a whole Chinatown. The Chinese ran the pearl-fishing industry there. Bloody hard work that must have been. They didn’t have any health and safety regulations then. Lost a lot of divers. Lost your father like that, didn’t you, Ching?’

‘Grandfather too,’ the man, Ching, said.

After drinks, they had dinner by the pool.

Mickey Selkirk, overcoming his natural aversion to Limeys, did his best to be polite to Barnard.

‘Been to the Kimberley before, Ed?’ he asked,

‘Been to Perth and Albany but never to the Kimberley. Great time of year, isn’t it?’ Barnard waved in the direction of the river. ‘Can we swim in the river?’

‘Course you can, if you don’t mind the crocs,’ Selkirk replied. ‘Mind you, the freshwater crocs aren’t as dangerous as the salties. The salties can come quite a way upstream. Fella got taken by a saltie a few days back at Pentecost River crossing and that’s a long way inland. Came too close to the bank in his boat. You think they’re asleep on the bank there but they’re not. They can spend days watching. Not moving. Then, bang, you’re gone. They spin you round and round and drown you, unless you can manage to jab a knife in their eye. Lull you into a false sense of security, that’s what they do.’

Was that Selkirk’s preferred modus operandi , Barnard wondered? Lulling the opposition into a false sense of security, before striking, suddenly and ruthlessly?

When Ching and Fung had cleared the table, Selkirk tapped on the rim of his glass. It was time to get down to business.

‘Melanie and I just want to say how much we appreciate the effort you guys have made to get here. I remember when Tony Blair flew out to the Whitsundays back in 1995. “Mickey, I need your support,” he said. “Your newspapers. Your TV. We can’t do it without you?” Well, I gave him that support. We pulled out all the stops. And the Labour Party won with the largest Labour majority ever.

‘So you don’t need to tell me why you’re here,’ Selkirk added. ‘But let me say one thing. I want to be perfectly clear about this. I can’t be bought, but I can possibly be persuaded.’

They all laughed dutifully. When you come to see a king, you first pay homage. Listening to the fella, laughing at his jokes, even when they are shit-awful, is part of the deal.

After that, they got down to business.

Later that evening, sitting with his laptop on the patio outside his room – no mozzies, thank heavens – Barnard skyped Harriet Marshall.

‘Harriet, is that you? Look at the screen. I can only see the top of your head.’

‘I can’t see you at all. Turn the camera on.’

When they had sorted out the technicalities, Barnard explained, ‘We’ve done the deal. Nothing in writing, of course. That’s not the way Selkirk works but it’s in the bag. Rosie Craig said she had the full authority of her father. If they win the election, they’ll rip up the regulator, the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission. If they don’t abolish it, they’ll bring it to heel. Appoint a new commissioner. And as far as Russia’s concerned, an incoming Craig administration will press President Popov to allow Selkirk Global to expand throughout the whole of the territory.’

‘Why would Popov agree to that?’ Harriet asked.

Barnard leaned into the screen. He pressed his right forefinger to the side of his nose. ‘President Popov didn’t become one of the richest men in Russia just by sitting around scratching his bum.’

‘What about the UK?’ Harriet asked. ‘Did Selkirk have some specific “asks” there too?’

‘He certainly did. He wants a post-Brexit government in Britain to dismember the BBC. To break it up, like we broke up British Rail. He believes the tax-payer-funded Beeb totally distorts the market-place in Britain. He wants a level playing field as far as the media are concerned.’

‘And what did you say? Did you stick to the script we agreed?’

‘Well, I didn’t give him what he wanted. I told him that even a radical post-Brexit government in Britain couldn’t sacrifice a sacred cow like the BBC, not overnight anyway. But I did point out that the BBC’s Charter was up for renewal at the end of the year and that having a new Brexit-led government in power in Britain could make quite a difference.’

‘I like it.’ Harriet Marshall’s leering face was hugely distorted by the camera angle. ‘Did you fill in the details?’

‘I didn’t need to. Mickey Selkirk may be over eighty but he doesn’t miss a trick. He just said, “Good on ya, mate.” Then we shook hands on it.’

Before turning in, Barnard Skyped his wife as well. He hadn’t spoken to Melissa for days.

‘Where are you?’ she asked.

When Barnard told her that he was staying at Mickey Selkirk’s million-acre cattle station in the Kimberley, Western Australia, Melissa Barnard asked, ‘What about the mosquitos?’

‘The mozzies are fine. I’m sitting here on the terrace outside my room with the doors open.’

They chatted on.

‘If you’re going to be jetting around the world for the next few days,’ Melissa said, ‘I think I’ll go to visit Fiona and Michael in Ireland. They’ve got such a lovely place there. So calming.’

Fiona, their daughter, was a marine biologist. Her boyfriend – partner might be the better word, because they seemed quite seriously taken with each other – was a young Irish lawyer called Michael Kennedy, who specialized in Arctic environmental issues.

‘The Arctic’s done for, Mrs Barnard, unless we act now’, is what he’d told her on her last visit.

‘Yes, do go to Ireland,’ Barnard urged her. ‘God’s own country, isn’t it? Please give my love to Fiona and say hi to Michael too.’

Melissa was about to disconnect, when she suddenly remembered something she had been meaning to say all along.

‘And, Edward, I was thinking about that that disgusting film. I knew all along the man on the bed wasn’t you.’

‘You told me that already,’ Barnard mildly reminded her. ‘You said I wouldn’t have been up for the rumpy pumpy, not that kind of rumpy pumpy anyway!’

‘Oh, Edward. Don’t take things so literally. You’re fine in that department, I promise you. Quite fine enough, anyway, so far as I’m concerned. No, there’s something else. Do you still have the film?’